


Whispers in the Night

by stele3



Series: The Tether Series [3]
Category: Black Sails
Genre: Canon Disabled Character, Gen, Jewish Character, M/M, Polyamory, Post-Season/Series 04, Treasure Island Compliant, sorta - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-01
Updated: 2018-06-01
Packaged: 2019-05-16 19:18:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14817324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stele3/pseuds/stele3
Summary: Thomas wakes to the sound of John Barlow lying about something.He can tell, even before he’s awake enough to comprehend words, that John is lying: there’s a particular timbre of his voice, low and melodious, that he calls up whenever he wishes to draw someone into his confidences. It’s a tell most curious for its blatancy.At the moment he is saying something about his marriage and how, having lost it, inevitably he would seek out its imitation elsewhere, and this should have been expected. Which means he’s most likely speaking to James.Indeed, when Thomas lifts his cheek from where it had been resting on John’s bare stomach, he discovers James standing at the foot of the bed, still wearing the clothes he’d been in last night for his performance at the Green Gentleman Tavern on Wilbur Street. Presently, he is looking down at the scene before him with a dazed, wild-eyed expression, the scene before him being: Thomas and John, naked, tangled together in the blankets of the bed in which Thomas and James have spent the last two and a half years of their lives.“Good morning, love,” Thomas says with a yawn. “I don’t suppose you’ve started breakfast.”





	Whispers in the Night

_~Philadelphia, March 1723_

 

Thomas wakes to the sound of John Barlow lying about something.

He can tell, even before he’s awake enough to comprehend words, that John is lying: there’s a particular timbre of his voice, low and melodious, that he calls up whenever he wishes to draw someone into his confidences. It’s a tell most curious for its blatancy.

At the moment he is saying something about his marriage and how, having lost it, inevitably he would seek out its imitation elsewhere, and this should have been expected. Which means he’s most likely speaking to James.

Indeed, when Thomas lifts his cheek from where it had been resting on John’s bare stomach, he discovers James standing at the foot of the bed, still wearing the clothes he’d been in last night for his performance at the Green Gentleman Tavern on Wilbur Street. Presently, he is looking down at the scene before him with a dazed, wild-eyed expression, the scene before him being: Thomas and John, naked, tangled together in the blankets of the bed in which Thomas and James have spent the last two and a half years of their lives.

“Good morning, love,” Thomas says with a yawn. “I don’t suppose you’ve started breakfast.”

“No,” James says. He looks down at his feet. “I just got home.”

It’s still mostly dark and the rest of the house is quiet. Perfect. Thomas stretches, adopting a languorous pose. James’ face twitches and Thomas smirks. “And how are Mr. and Mrs. Poole? Has their feckless daughter given them a grandchild yet?”

“No. Last week, Henrietta announced that she wishes to become a midwife.”

“Oh my,” says Thomas, who had gifted a number of medical texts and journals to young Miss Henrietta Poole. “Well, perhaps she’ll give everyone _else_ grandchildren, then.”

The cheek is wasted on James, who glowers. “You have been barred from the Green Gentleman until further notice.”

“Oh come now! Surely no one can object to an upstanding young Puritan woman seeking to better herself?”

“Better herself? Thomas, half the ladies in town can’t even _read_.”

“Yes, I count myself that much more fortunate to have found an exception, and doubly committed to facilitating her education in whatever field she cares to explore.”

“They think you have designs on her virtue. If you have any further contact with Henrietta, they’re going to kill you. Mr. Poole didn’t say so outright but he looked it, and Mr. Suttock didn’t especially like the idea of you getting hacked to death with a hoe in the middle of his tavern.”

“Well. That’s not very Christian of them.”

“I…hate to interrupt,” Barlow says slowly.

“Yes?”

For once, fantastically, Barlow appears to be at a lack for further words. His blue eyes move back and forth between them. “God, you’re a gorgeous creature,” Thomas says once it’s apparent that Barlow’s uncharacteristic silence is fit to linger. “I’d flatter myself to say that as a young man, I had a certain kind of elegance—a Grecian profile, they would say. But this?” He waves a hand—first at Barlow, splayed naked over the sheets with his black hair tumbling free, then at James, his strong shoulders filling out his overcoat and his elegant hands tugging at his hair—before letting it fall to the mattress in an expressive swoon. He shakes his head, smiling at James. “I am undone.”

“Are you,” Barlow croaks, having rediscovered his voice, “did you two… _plan this_?”

“ _No_ ,” James says, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I wish I could say yes, if only to pretend that I have some semblance of control over my own life.”

“Darling, whysoever would you lie to yourself that way?”

Barlow starts up out of bed, his voice thick with sudden anger. “If the two of you are going to make sport—”

He falls back under Thomas’ gentle hand. Violence never sways John Barlow: he knows it too well, and readily meets it in kind. But the iron wall of his resistance fragments at the softest touch.

Taking a deep breath in, Thomas begins, “I have, in my studies, examined the family patterns of the Iroquois people—”

“Jesus fucking Christ,” James says, and strides out of the room.

“At least be good enough to stir the fire!” Thomas calls after him, then returns his attentions to Barlow, who is propped up on his elbows and still looking quite skittish.

Last night, he and Thomas had gone to the Green Gentleman to watch James play guitar. It’s not a new skill: James had been quite the musician when Thomas and Miranda had first known him, but it’s obviously been some time since he picked up an instrument. He’d faltered over an old Spanish _vihuela_ at their kitchen table until Thomas could afford to buy him a newer, more modern guitar.

Now he plays quite well, enough so that some of the more well-to-do taverns pay him half a shilling and a meal for music while their guests eat. It’s usually on a Friday night, which means that Thomas goes alone to listen, as both Rebekah and Marielena swear off in deference to their respective faiths; but this time John elected to come along.

Thomas, who has seen many such performances and thus built up a tolerance, ordered a round of their strongest ale then sat back to observe. As entertaining as it is to watch James—his eyes closed, his hair falling loose from its tie, his fingers moving deftly over the guitar like a lover—it was even more entertaining to watch _John_ watch James play.

That lasted until the next round of ale arrived, and then John shifted his attention to Thomas. He flirted with a blatancy that bordered on recklessness; Thomas walked them back to something that would be overlooked in a public house, and kept them right on that edge for the entire night.

They left early, with another cold snap coming in. James often stayed overnight in the tavern, but Thomas didn’t want to push their luck with the owner, and he sensed the need to seize advantage of this opening. So he and John tramped home through the icy lanes; John even allowed Thomas to keep a hand under his elbow in case his crutch slipped.

They shuffled into their little brick home and hurried to light a candle; Rebekah and Marielena were long since asleep, or at least abed. For a moment, the darkness seemed alive, a miasma that would pull back only to reveal something more terrible. It is not often that Thomas loses hold of the insidious terror that Bedlam instilled in his mind, but in the dark, his head spinning with drink, he slipped a little.

Then a small light spluttered and shone on John’s downturned face. Focused on the candle, he didn’t know to defend his expression, something that has become more common of late. Stepping into a room unannounced or turning a corner suddenly will afford Thomas a single glimpse of John’s unguarded face before he slips back into the performance of himself.

It is a young face, but worn and terribly sad, and John’s ability to hide it from them has been deteriorating ever since December and Rebekah’s menorah.

And so last night Thomas went in for the kill, ruthless as any throat-slitter of legend descending on a weakened foe. “I saw you, you know. That day you brought James to the plantation.”

John looked up, his expression smoothing into the part of seducer again. “Did you? I’m rather grateful I didn’t spot you there myself, or I might have thrown it all over in favor of tilling the soils.”

“But you did.” Crossing to him, Thomas gently nudged John’s hair over his shoulder and ran a knuckle along his jaw. “I saw you watching us when I held James for the first time. I wouldn’t have remembered except for the crutch—you were standing by the carriage leaning on your crutch and you watched us embrace.”

Goosebumps broke out underneath his fingers as he cupped the side of John’s neck. John shuddered and drew in a faint gasp, overwhelmed by even that fleeting contact; how long had it been, Thomas wondered, since anyone had touched him with any gentleness?

“One becomes extraordinarily aware of the watchers,” Thomas continued, “having spent long enough in bondage. So after James and I kissed, I looked again. You were just turning away to climb into the carriage and you had the most dreadful expression on your face. At the time I confess that I thought you someone’s hired man, ascertaining the safety of his delivery and unable to control his disgust at the spectacle of two men embracing. But that wasn’t it at all, was it, John?”

It was the first time he’d ever used Barlow’s Christian name—a name most certainly invented, if Rebekah is to be believed. It had the desired effect. Seduction peeled back from John’s face like skin from a skull, leaving something hateful and despairing. Thomas held very still, wondering for a moment if he’d miscalculated; this seemed very much the expression that a man might see before he died in a bloody manner.

Then John snarled, “Shut the fuck up,” and surged up to kiss him.

His anger lasted him into the bedroom, where a kind of blank automation took over. Oh, it was quite the experience, certainly: John wasted no time in making Thomas come, and come again. Whatever wife he’d left behind, he clearly lacked no experience with male bodies and how to pleasure them; but in receiving pleasure he was nothing short of a novice…deliberately so, Thomas would wager. Or perhaps deliberate is the wrong word. _Impulsion_ , yes, that’s better.

Whether by design or by accident, John kept Thomas from giving him anything but the most cursory touches and embraces before moving them into a different sexual act, most of which clearly predated his loss of limb as he occasionally faltered, shifting position with a sharp twist of his mouth in order to accommodate the lack. When eventually they both internally judged Thomas to be properly debauched—John with the mind to enrage James, Thomas for the sake of being properly debauched—only then did he allow Thomas to curl around him. The last thing Thomas saw before he fell asleep was the faint glint of John’s open eyes, staring up at the ceiling.

Now John turns his gaze on Thomas, clearly unmoored after not being run out of the house or simply run through. That, clearly, had been how he expected this to end.

“You can go out the window if you like,” Thomas suggests gently, propping his chin on his hand and his elbow on the mattress. “You’re of a size to fit, though I’d request that you take the time to put on some clothes and your leg. I do feel I should warn you that James is likely to take much greater offense to your departure than anything you and I did last night.”

“Dare I ask _why_?”

It’s not clear whether John doubts James’ lack of offense at finding John in bed with his husband, or if he doubts that James would take offense at his absence. Both, Thomas believes, can best be answered with a demonstration and on a full stomach, so he rolls to the far side of the bed and stands, draping himself in the nightshirt and robe hung on the bedpost.

“Join us, won’t you?” he inquires. When the doubtful expression does not ease from John’s face, Thomas rolls his eyes. “Come now. I know you’re curious, if nothing else. Should your caution outweigh your curiosity, there’s the window.”

In the kitchen, James has dutifully stirred the fire. It’s still quite chilly in the mornings, though not so dire as to warrant pantaloons shoved under the door. John returned to his pallet next to the fire shortly after the new year, and the women to their bed upstairs, where—judging from the sounds at night—Marielena cast aside her religious inhibitions once again.

James stands in front of the fireplace, scowling and poking it with his metal spar. When Thomas drapes himself against his back, James makes a noise of disgust, though he does not try to wriggle free.

“Do not,” Thomas murmurs in his ear, “pretend for a _moment_ that you were not playing _con somma passione_ last night, my dear. You forget how many times I have seen you perform. Last night I think Mrs. Poole herself could have been moved to write you indecent letters.”

James’ scowl twitches a little, unwillingly. “The musical piece called for it.”

“Oh, of course. Which is why you chose to play _that piece_ on the first night that John Barlow attended. It is only to your misfortune that you had to finish playing in order to earn your supper—otherwise I think it might have been a footrace home.”

James says nothing further, but his ears redden. Thomas nips at one playfully then turns as John thumps into the room. He’s put on his peg leg and his trousers but has left off a waistcoat and wears only a white shirt, with no apparent intent of lunging for the front door. Excellent.

He does look back and forth between them with lingering suspicion. “Forgive me—but are we just going to sit down to breakfast together?”

“We can,” Thomas says with a shrug while James wordlessly heads into the kitchen. “Some men engage in dalliances out of inquisitiveness rather than genuine interest, and thereafter find themselves sated, thus to return to the bosom of womankind. I personally find no fault in this practice—necessity may be the mother of invention but curiosity is its father, and the thirst for knowledge is, I believe, one of the most important driving forces of our species.”

John cuts his eyes sideways as James returns with a loaf of bread. “And you—you would be perfectly fine with forgetting all about this…dalliance?”

Pausing in the act of seating himself at the table, James looks at him. Thomas can talk and talk, but James has the capacity to say volumes with a single glance. “No.”

He sits. John looks at Thomas, who bites back a smile and says gently, “Sit down, John. Have some tea.”

For once John obeys without a fuss, though once James has dispersed crusts of bread and pats of butter and Thomas has poured them all tea, he inquires, “This truly isn’t a last meal of some kind? Because if it is, I should like something stronger than tea.”

“I’m not angry with you,” James growls.

“Indeed, I can tell by the murderous glower leveled at me from over the bedposts this morning.”

Swirling his tea about in the cup, Thomas says, “I have, in my studies, examined the family patterns of the Iroquois people. Like most of the native tribes, they subsist primarily on hunting and gathering, as opposed to the cultivation of farmland. As such, they are not bound to any particular plot of land which passes between generations, thus eliminating the necessity of patrilineal descent. Or matrilineal descent, for that matter. Iroquois women, therefore, are treated quite differently than our own. Instead of keeping them locked away in drawing rooms in order to preserve their virtue—for make no mistake, that is precisely the motive behind such prevarications of intellectual or biological inferiority—they take equal part in the same activities as the men. They also take multiple lovers, none of whom display any jealousy of the others. Indeed, all benefit from the increased labor output of each longhouse as surely as an English manor benefits from a staff, but among the Iroquois there are no servants. All are equals. All raise the children together, all contribute to the daily tasks, all share their food and their love. Now does that not seem a much more _pleasant_ way of going about life than jealously guarding your possessions and your loved ones from those who may themselves be in need? Does it not seem that by guarding your lover you shall eventually treat _them_ as a possession that belongs only to you? Is that what God meant when He commanded us to let no debt remain outstanding, save the debt to love one another? For it does not seem that way to me.”

Over the course of this lecture, John’s expression has transitioned through wary tension to confused fondness—which of course was the whole point of the speech—and upon its completion he turns to James and asks, “I presume you have heard this speech before?”

“Several times.”

Sighing, Thomas leans towards John, who regains some of his apprehension. “If you both would prefer a more physical demonstration, then please do come here, John. No, don’t look at me like that. You’ve already had my cock in your mouth, a little kissing can’t hurt at this point. Come here, my love.”

The pet name is perhaps a bit much at this stage, but it works like a charm: John melts and meets Thomas halfway over the corner of the table for the kind of kiss that he mostly avoided last night. In this, he is _so_ wonderfully responsive. Only moments after their lips touch, Thomas can feel him forget about James completely, re-focusing on the sweet pull of their mouths. His chair leg screeches against the wooden floor, and if this goes long enough Thomas doesn’t doubt that he will be mounted right here at the table. He thinks he would very much enjoy having John in his lap.

Still, there is a point to be made here, and so Thomas eases them apart again with shallowing kisses. John’s face is dazed already. Oh yes, he will be so easy to undo.

“Mmmm,” Thomas purrs, leaning in for one last, chaste peck before he tips his head to James and says: “Now look at him.”

Blinking away an appreciative amount of disorientation, John obeys. Across the table, James is watching them both with green-eyed, blazing intensity, his cheeks blotchy and his fingers jumping on the silverware. He twitches when they turn and looks down at the untouched bread on his plate. His ears are bright red.

“ _Oh_ ,” John breathes, wide-eyed.

“You see? I don’t blame you for not recognizing the difference between murderous rage and desperate lust—they do look rather similar on James, and you likely saw much more of the former. But there, it’s in the—”

“The cheekbones, yes. I do see it now.”

“Quite right, my dear.” Thomas pats John’s leg then runs his hand up and down a few times to really drive his point home. “So, let us not have any misunderstandings here. I might have had you first, but that doesn’t mean that James isn’t going to have you second.”

John’s eyes widen a little but then his expression smooths into a curling smile. It has—a slight edge to it, one that catches at Thomas’ notice. “Or perhaps you’ll tie for that honor.”

“Goddammit,” James snarls, standing up. “Not _now_ , we won’t. You have to go see Denham about work,” he jabs a finger at Thomas, “and _you_ have to go wherever you go during the days,” he finishes, waving at John. “And _I_ am already _late_.”

John seems a little relieved to escape, though he notably adjusts himself in his pants as he goes. The glower on James’ face has shifted slightly closer towards genuine anger, and so Thomas does not tarry. Thomas has found some work in Thomas Denham’s office after all, though merely setting the type and feeding paper into the machine then removing it once the type has been set to page. It is mind-numbing work, but far better than hoeing the fields, and carries with it the possibility of advancement among Denham’s circle.

James opens his shop far earlier than Denham but Denham’s press is much further to travel, and so they have taken up the habit of walking to work together. Marielena will be at the Green Gentleman already feeding the masons and carpenters their Saturday morning repast. Thomas wonders if she noted the absence of John by the fire this morning. Likely not, Thomas suspects she would have roused the house with demands that they search the neighborhood, as she’s grown quite fond of her illusory brother; or perhaps she knew exactly where John had bedded down for the night.

Either in deference to his tardiness or driven by more emotional sources, James sets out from home at a brisk pace which, combined with his stony expression, drives more than one person out of their path. Undeterred, Thomas clasps his hands behind his back and loosens his gait. He has over a hand of height on James, much of it in his legs; he will not tire first.

“The daffodils are so lovely,” he comments as they pass a yard bursting with the golden flowers.

James grunts.

“They seem like the first desperate hope of spring, don’t you think? I’ve heard they survive snow, frost, and hail alike. When I passed that very patch of flowers last night, they had been flattened by that great shower two days ago, and I thought they certainly would not recover and yet here they are, today, standing upright and reaching again for the sun. To find such hardiness among the most vibrant and beautiful of God’s creation seems a rather pointed message to us, does it not?”

James scoffs.

“I suppose you’re right, that’s a rather simplistic view of things. To presume that beauty and the practicality of a being’s survival are somehow in opposition seems a blatant failing of Plato, if you’ll pardon my heretical critique of the masters. Like as not, beauty is exactly the method by which the lovely daffodil has flourished, for there is not a farmer nor a banker in this city who does not draw a breath of relief to see those yellow petals, heralding the coming of spring and an end to the dark months.”

James rolls his eyes.

They walk a little further through the crowd that had just begun to swell with the day’s business before James heaves a sigh, finally slowing his murderous pace. “Thomas, what are you doing?”

Thomas considers his response very carefully. The direct answer— _I am doing what you won’t allow yourself to do_ —will likely lead to a confrontation, one which Thomas especially does not relish having to navigate in a public space.

So instead he says: “I want you to be happy.”

The even tread of James’ feet slows. He walks a little heavier on the left, a military quirk that he has apparently never lost. Thomas allows himself to drift to a halt beside James in the thoroughfare.

“Do you think I am unhappy?” James asks, his brow furrowed. _With you_ , he means. Once upon a time they could read each other’s thoughts in the barest twitch of an eyebrow, but now Thomas only ever catches fragments; more than happiness, he wants _that_ back.

“No, and nor am I. But if _more_ happiness is possible, why deny it to ourselves?” That is an unsubtle reference to something Miranda once said, when their relationship was still treacherous in its newness: she’d stood between them like a bridge, easing James to Thomas’ side.

James scoffs and resumes walking. “By weighing possible happiness against probable disaster. You are not as familiar with the shape that disaster can take, the depths to which one can sink.”

That, Thomas has no argument against: he does not doubt for a moment that John—whether he calls himself Barlow or Silver—possesses an unusual capacity for destruction, nor that Thomas is ill-equipped to grasp the level of devastation that one man can wreck in the midst of a conflict the likes of which unfolded in Nassau. He _has_ most certainly seen the inclination thereto.

For Thomas, last night was a beginning and a bridge; but for John it had been an attempt at leveling cannonfire into their quiet, mostly-happy lives, even if the vast majority of his vitriol was directed inward.

Ordinarily Thomas would eschew relations with the sort of person who seeks to destroy what he cannot have, even—or especially—if it destroys their own happiness; but he suspects Captain James Flint might belong to that category of person, as well. So instead he finds himself here, turning aside John’s attempt to damage his relationship with James and John’s relationship to them both.

If there _is_ a relationship to be had. James appears quite intractable.

There is but one trump card that Thomas can play. He asks in a low voice: “Do you think John is happy?”

That puts a wobble in James’ steps, as if the question has physically landed on his shoulders. Almost Thomas regrets asking…but then he remembers John’s face lit by candlelight, and he thinks that no one, not even a man who put James in chains, deserves to carry that much tangled misery inside his heart, not while the meanest scrap of affection can soften his hard edges. Perhaps in time those edges will calcify and John will feed himself wholesale to the cold-eyed creature that sometimes overtakes him; but it has not happened yet.

They’ve reached the humble storefront of James’ shop, just off of Market Street. Erik has already opened the door a crack and set a few of their finer pieces, including a lovely rocking chair painted with flowers, in front of the shop’s windows.

Stopping a few yards shy of the door, Thomas clasps his hands behind his back. “It just seems such a waste. I don’t think I’ve climaxed that many times in quite a while—not that you need feel self-conscious, he has the advantage of youth.”

They are more than far enough from the nearest passersby that Thomas feels comfortable risking the comment, but not so far that James shares the sentiment. He glances quickly at the distant thoroughfare and steps closer with an admonishing, “Thomas.”

It tells Thomas everything that he needs to know, and he lets the remorse show on his face. “I’m sorry. I am so terribly sorry, James. I should have known better than to be so indiscreet with my friends and to be more careful with my father’s presence in the house. That was _never_ your fault, do you understand?”

That strikes so far home as to be a mortal wound, for James looks like he might die of those words. “ _Thomas_.”

Chancing on a close-quarter combat, Thomas leans in nearer and murmurs, “We shall be more careful this time, because I think with some gentle encouragement John will be very _loud_ in bed. For now, he’s quiet enough to choke a church mouse when he finishes, but it takes great effort on his part. I would very much like to lift that burden of silence from him, my dear, and I think you would, too.”

Then he turns and, hands clasped loosely behind his back, demonstrates the walk of a man about town to anyone who cares to glance his way as he rejoins the gentle stroll of those on Market Street.

-o-

The rest of the day passes uneventfully for Thomas. Mr. Denham is more present than other printing masters, moving about his shop and inspecting the work of his press, not necessarily because he does not trust his employees—or so Thomas hopes—but out of a healthy abundance of interest in the processes of publishing, which Thomas can respect. Here is a man who not only takes pride but pleasure in the functioning of his business. If Thomas had had twenty of him in Nassau, why he—

That thought dies quickly, nipped off at the bud. As a younger man Thomas had not liked to acknowledge the limits of his scope, as he viewed that acknowledgement a kind of excuse for not dreaming larger; but now, situated in the direct flow of slave trade to the Colonies—and the Quaker abolitionist movement that has risen like a rock to disrupt that streaming river of injustice—Thomas knows painfully well how many would have been left out of his pardons. What agonies would have continued in the name of progress. The question of what might happen to any escaped slaves among the pirate crews simply hadn’t even _occurred_ to Thomas, and he does not blame James—or John—in the slightest for rejecting the pardons in favor of embracing an alliance with those whom Thomas himself had so automatically excluded from mercy.

And so one topic he absolutely denies himself is the rumination of what might have become of his governorship in Nassau, had his father not intervened. For even if he _had_ found some kind of treaty with the Maroon camps, as Governor Featherstone did, there would have been the tribes of Marielena’s birth, struck down by the diseases of English and Spanish alike, and driven inland by the same. Or, by God, those tribes that are right now being driven west by Lt. Governor Dummer in the Massachusetts colony.

No. That is not for him, any longer. Thomas turns to present a page to Mr. Denham and forces himself to feel quite grateful for the patronage. He is the son of an Earl, and if he were to travel anywhere else in the civilized world he would be apprehended and likely imprisoned by command of the British Empire; and so to survive, he must accept what happens to what the Empire deems an uncivilized world. In order for _James_ to survive.

Despite his enforced humility it would all be quite unbearable without the possibility of advancement. Young Benjamin has departed for London and is apparently undergoing his tutelage there, with the hope that he shall return with more advanced equipment. Thomas looks forward to being preoccupied with newer technologies.

The press only operates for a few hours at a time in these doldrum days, and so Thomas ventures home at an early hour. By then, as is typical for a Saturday afternoon, Marielena has arrived and immediately set about preparing tea for the house, despite Thomas’ protests. One day he will convince her not to do his laundry; he settles for driving her to sit at the table while he finishes preparing simple cornmeal cakes. At the plantation, Thomas had frequently passed a turn at the shoulder of some wizened cook, the like who had lain with children or eaten their own mothers. He’d learned from them the tasks of spicing and baking—the sort of things that once he had left to a whole staff of individuals whose skills he entirely discounted.

Those considerations, now, he also leaves aside. They aren’t useful here; what is useful are his skills as a cook, however gained.

John slinks in shortly after Rebekah comes home, his eyes darting quickly around the room before he relaxes. Watching him, Thomas wonders if John is actually attracted to him or if Thomas merely represented the most convenient facsimile to James…or, worse, if John had been so desperate for James’ attention that he’d sought out his violence instead.

When John’s eyes find his, Thomas reads equal amounts of apprehension and hope, and he wonders if he’s chosen wrong. If the wiser, kinder path would be to step back and allow James and John to find their own way together, absent Thomas’ interference _or_ his desires. Miranda had done that for him and James: when their love had consumed them, she’d staged a tacit retreat, taking other lovers and only occasionally joining them in bed. Perhaps Thomas should do the same.

“I’ve some onions,” John reports, tugging open a burlap sack and displaying its contents to Thomas.

Thomas blinks. “Those are beets.”

“What?”

“Those aren’t onions, they’re beets. They look rather similar when first taken from the ground.” Thomas, unfortunately, now knows far too much about vegetables.

John looks down at the beets, his brow furrowed, and Thomas knows himself to be an unwise and unkind man, because _he_ wants to be truly desired by this strange, halfway feral creature. Men have gone to their deaths at his command and now he frowns in bemusement at a sack full of beets as if wondering what, exactly, is the differentiation from an onion.

“Give them to Marielena,” Thomas advises. “She’ll pickle them, perhaps.” 

“Pickle what?” Marielena asks, instantly paying attention. She has been desirous of a winter store, one that will save them all from scrapple even if John’s windfall of gold runs dry.

John shows her the beets, though with a bit more reluctance now that he senses the opportunity to look foolish. Thankfully Marielena shows her customary appreciation of any and all foodstuffs. “I will boil some of them for juice, and then I will make a proper cake.”

That gives them all pause. “I’m…terribly sorry,” John says, squinting at the stringy, leafy vegetables that Marielena is happily sorting on the table, “but did you say _cake_?”

“Si. Just wait, it will be delicious and you will beg me for more.”

John looks from the vegetables to Thomas, who can only shrug in bewilderment. He knows a great deal about the propagation and harvesting of vegetables but little about how to turn them into pastries. “All right then.”

From his bag John also produces a cache of roasted nuts and some cheese. If Thomas didn’t know better he would say that John is trying to curry favor within the house. Usually he eschews their unusual custom of taking tea, a habit of the nobility that Thomas has kept with the utmost stubbornness and which Marielena adopted with the mindset that no one should ever pass up an excuse to eat food.

Now they all sit down for tea and company. For her part, Rebekah greets Thomas by waggling her index finger— _all is well_ —then poking out her pinkie finger to ask how he fares. _Very well_ , Thomas answers, then brushes his hand over his mouth to ask if she can speak today. She shakes her head minutely. It is not so rare an occurrence, though the bouts of silence have grown more infrequent in recent months now that Rebekah can safely retreat to their home whenever she feels overwhelmed instead of forcing herself—or being forced—to continue interacting with others. There is certainly enough housework to keep her busy despite Marielena’s best efforts. _We were born to work together like feet, hands, and eyes_ , Thomas thinks and cannot help but smile around the table.

The front door abruptly clatters open. It’s James in the entryway, red-cheeked and breathing as if he’s run all the way home from his shop.

“James?” Thomas asks. “What—?”

He cuts off as James’ eyes land on John and subtly darken. The rest of him shifts as well, his shoulders squaring and his head tipping forward like a dog about to bite. His satchel hits the ground with the thud of expensive tools being dropped and he starts across the room.

Either John didn’t quite believe the demonstration from this morning or he’s a lot more skittish than he lets on, because his eyes widen and his hands grope blindly across the table in search of weapon. He starts up out of his chair as James crosses behind Rebekah and rounds the corner of the table, and they both violently seize the crutch leaning against the back of John’s chair. John swings, and James just barely blocks a blow to his head, redirecting it to his shoulder. Marielena cries out wordlessly in confused alarm. Thomas starts to rise, equally bewildered. Rebekah doesn’t even blink.

James prevails in their brief struggle, knocking the crutch aside and half-lifting John the rest of the way out of his chair. He doesn’t stop, though: his momentum carries them both to the wall next to the hearth, John hitting first and James quickly moving to pin him in place.

At some point in their journey from the table to the wall, James succeeds in getting his mouth on John’s.

The lines of John’s body go rigid—but then like the most ardent spring following a long, long winter he goes fluid, pouring himself against James. His arm hooks around the back of James’ neck. He makes a noise of pure relief, one that James echoes, and begins to kiss him back.

Leaning back on the rear two legs of her chair, Rebekah reaches behind her to twitch the curtains closed.

When she rocks forward again her chair legs hit the floor with a loud crack. James and John jolt apart, staring at one another with wide eyes.

James demands, “Did you fucking stab me with a _fucking fork_?”

John’s eyes are glazed, his mouth hanging open. “Uh,” he says intelligently.

Clearly not interested in hearing any further rejoinders, James resumes his assault. Unlike Thomas he does not play at gentle kisses: he moves to devour John, biting his lips before slanting his head to one side and pushing his tongue into John’s mouth.

Neither of them seems to give any mind to the eating utensil still sticking out of James’ shoulder at a jaunty angle.

It’s Marielena, bless her, who inches forward to retrieve the fork. It doesn’t appear to have punctured the skin, merely lodged in the thick cloth of James’ winter coat, and so Thomas feels perfectly obliged to draw up his chair to that side of the table and resume eating his repast while he enjoys the entertainment. Rebekah likely would as well, but if Marielena blushes any harder she might faint so Rebekah nudges her towards the door, pocketing the remains of the bread and depositing a sizable portion of butter on her saucer before she taps the back of Thomas’ chair in farewell, or for luck, or some other reason fathomable only to her.

Once he’s shaken off his initial shock, John fights his corner well, running his hands across James’ back and sides like he’s searching something out in a darkened room. He finds it quick enough: when fingernails scratch over his scalp, James moans with abandon and retaliates by roughly shoving his hand into John’s hair, pulling it free from its queue.

It seems impossible that this is their first kiss, their first embrace, yet Thomas is so selfishly glad that they never fumbled their way together in the past, because now he is here as witness.

Eventually the storm abates, or more likely they enter the false calm of its center. By now John has hiked his half-leg around James’ hip and is unconsciously flexing against him, and James has pulled up the back of John’s shirt to roam a hand across his ribs and down the back of his pants; they both seem ready to have each other right here, yet James carefully retreats, decreasing the joining of their mouths to short kisses and finally separating completely.

For a moment they hover close, slack-jawed, their eyes darting over each other’s faces as if reading the map of this new land in which they found themselves.

Then James jerks his head towards Thomas and says, “Now look at him.”

He turns, and after a moment John follows his gaze to look at Thomas, who twitches with surprise, caught out in his avid voyeurism.

“Oh.” Thomas glances down at his lap; the thickening bud of his cock has put a rather obvious tent in his trousers. “Yes, well. This,” he says, drawing a circle around his reddening cheeks with a finger, “is what desperate lust looks like on my face, yes.”

That finally seems to put real interest in John’s face, naked of any artifice or dark torment. It isn’t enough to make Thomas forget the presence of both when last they tumbled into bed together. He begins, “We should perhaps discuss---”

“No, we should not,” James interrupts. Looping one arm around John’s waist, he crosses to the table and seizes Thomas’ shirt, pulling him out of his seat. “I have spent the entirety of this day,” he continues as he half-drags, half-pushes them both in the direction of the bedroom, “hiding behind my work bench so as not to terrify poor Erik with my arousal. If you try to wax philosophical _one more time_ then by _God_ I will have one of you across the kitchen table.”

“You say that as a threat? Darling, turn us back and I should be more than happy to oblige.”

“I don’t think I could look Maria in the eye again,” John says. He is letting James mostly carry him in favor of pulling his shirt collar aside and nuzzling into his neck. From the expression on James’ face, all of this might finish prematurely in the hallway, but then he heaves John up and knocks into Thomas, hustling them all into the bedroom.

“You both,” James says as he twists to cast Silver halfway across the bed, “are the very _worst_ of men,” he strips Thomas of his waistcoat, “and I am cursed to have met either of you.”

Thomas catches both of his wrists and thus, the rest of James’ attention. “Accept the things to which fate binds you and love the people with whom fate brings you together, but do so with all your heart.”

The sentiment strikes James exactly the way Thomas hoped it would, and he takes full advantage of the momentary stunning to slant their mouths together. It is still so easy to kiss James. _This_ is all the same, even if their minds and the rest of their bodies have changed with the years: he moves his mouth thus and James follows; he presses his tongue here and James responds.

When they don’t have to say it aloud; they both know. _Now look at him_.

They turn as one. Propped on his elbows on the bed, John curls up like a caterpillar touched too roughly by their regard. The look on his face is the same expression that creeps over him whenever Rebekah speaks to him in Ladino: shy, fearful, and terribly wanting.

Something about the expression causes James to hesitate, like the thread of a shirt caught upon a jagged piece of wood. Thomas moves to keep the whole thing from unraveling and lays a possessive hand on the back of James’ neck. “I believe you’ll recall our discussion about a certain golden creature who was, I assure you, _entirely_ too proper for his own good.”

John smirks, successfully if only temporarily washed clean of whatever made James falter. “Ah, yes, I do recall. Am I to assume you took measures to correct that condition?”

“Oh, most thoroughly.”

“ _If one of you fuckers does not suck my cock right now I’m going to figure out how to do it myself_ ,” James hisses, sounding not unlike an exceptionally angry cat.

Without looking away from John, Thomas reaches up to grip James’ queue. “Would you care for a demonstration of my methods? For your own edification, of course.”

John, who had been in the midst of rearranging his body into a seductive pose—one leg drawn up, the other bent and splayed out to the side in invitation down what path he clearly thinks this encounter will journey—stops.

“Yes, he would,” James snaps, “just for the love of God get on with it.”

That leads to Thomas shoving James forward to prop himself against the bed on both hands, quickly followed by John losing any hesitancy or artifice in favor of crowding into James’ space, kissing him and helping to shove his trousers down to his knees. For his part James looks a little overcome, kissing Silver and reaching back to impatiently aid Thomas in his ministrations.

“God,” John gasps, pulling away to rake his eyes down James’ body. They’ve moved onto the bed, now, and all have succeeded in getting mostly naked. John, notably, still has his pants mostly on; Thomas leaves it be for now. “You have no idea, Captain, how many times I wondered how far down your blush might travel. I am inexpressibly deli— _oof!_ ”

Apparently, James has had enough talking, because he bodily drags John forward in order to get John’s cock in his mouth. It’s remarkably effective at stopping up _John’s_ mouth, as well.

Thomas can only hope, as they all three move together, that James understands this as the apology Thomas intends: the few times that Miranda joined them in bed it was with mind to place James between them, a rare treat that left him mute and clutching at them both, trying to get them closer to him. It’s as if the long, cold loneliness of his childhood had left him in need of their warmth.

The world has left its own marks on John Silver, as well, that much is painfully obvious. But for now, as he tangles his fingers in James’ hair, they seem to have released him from their claws.

-o-

There has been no absence of post-coital haze in Thomas’ life, even in recent times. Once they escaped the plantation in Savannah and found some measure of privacy, Thomas and James had spent days rediscovering each other’s bodies…though perhaps the experience could be better described as a reawakening. For his part, Thomas had only one lover in the long, dark years between, a younger inmate of the planation who perished in the first bout of smallpox. His death had inspired Thomas to accept the variolation suggested by the few African slaves who served in Mister Oglethorpe’s house, but otherwise he left no lasting mark other than a quiet sympathy for a death undeserved by one so young. Their trysts had been brief and furtive, more a physical relief than anything emotional, and other than that, Thomas has gone without intimacy for years and not even felt its absence.

To have James back is an entirely different matter. Nothing that James does is unemotional: he pours himself into all things and the bed is no exception.

Thomas has never asked what intimacies James engaged in during their time apart. He thinks he knows, and could not bear for it to be put to words.

In this particular haze, Thomas winds up lying on his side with his back against James. He drifts quite happily for a while until his reverie is broken by the voice of John Barlow.

“So. Did you do this often, in London? I was given to understand that your bedroom habits were… _adventurous_ , but I had no idea the extent. Have you been restraining yourself all this time out of deference to me?” he asks, twisting on the sheets, presumably to see James’ face better. “If so, please, do not hesitate any longer. I’m sure I can grow used to any number of your lovers stepping over me as I sleep.”

Unseen to them both, Thomas rolls his eyes.

Fortunately, James does not require any assistance in making a reply. “If you’re suggesting, Mr. Silver, that you’re one in a long line of men marching towards our bed in order to sate a substantial appetite, I’d ask you to list every member of the Walrus crew, the Ranger, the fort, Nassau, and the whole of New Providence Island, and then ask yourself who I so much as _looked at_ over the course of eleven years. You know that there was no absence of mateloges among the crews, and while such a thing might still be viewed askance in a captain, it would have been more than possible for me to find someone of a like mind to share my bed with far less risk than the ones we took in London. Now, what does that tell you?”

He waits, but when John gives no answer, James provides it himself: “No, we did not do this often, in London or the plantation or here. Miranda saw as much of my bed as Thomas, but no others.”

John marinates with that knowledge for some time, long enough that Thomas’ eyes begin to droop.

Then, in a whisper: “You’ve ruined me.”

There’s a dip of the pillow that must be James turning enough to see John’s face.

“You and her. But no, let me demonstrate a truly rare moment of honesty: you came first. I doubt that I would even have grown close to her had you not first drawn me in. When I met you, my heart was a stone, and you…you made me _feel_. And though I have tried and tried, in the long years of your absence and hers, to crawl back into the rock, I find I cannot. You know—you _must_ know that I could have found a hundred ways to fence the gold but I came here because—because I don’t honestly know that I can…”

“Shhh,” James whispers back. Part of Thomas wants to protest, to know precisely what Silver means by that, but if he rolls over now to interject he doubts that it would be taken kindly by either of them. “It’s late. Go to sleep, Mr. Silver, there will be time to speak of reparations in the morning.”

They fall silent and after some time, Thomas slips into troubled sleep, his dreams already worrying at the conversation like a sore tooth.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> -The vihuela referenced was a guitar-like six-stringed instrument commonly used in Portugal and Spain during the 15th and 16th centuries. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vihuela The more ‘modern’ piece of con somma passione music that Flint played in the Green Gentleman was this one: https://youtu.be/nPJo5uMlV5w?t=22m37s  
> -Taking tea was not very common in Colonial America, due to the leisure time it implied. I figure that Thomas would have clung to the ritual as an upperclass-Englishman and Rebekah and Marielena adopted it. https://colonialquills.blogspot.com/2015/10/taking-tea-in-colonial-america.html  
> -“We were born to work together like feet, hands and eyes, like the two rows of teeth, upper and lower. To obstruct each other is unnatural. To feel anger at someone, to turn your back on him: these are unnatural.” --Marcus Aurelius, Meditations.  
> -“Accept the things to which fate binds you, and love the people with whom fate brings you together, but do so with all your heart.” -also Aurelius, Meditations.


End file.
